Only the sound of the storm remained. Sheila listened. I had seizures. The thought hung in the darkness behind her eyes, which held spots of purple. This is all in my head! This is all just some misfiring in my brain! A jagged laugh slipped out, body trembled.

The scrabble of claws rose among the rotted timbers. Sheila froze. A foot dragged over the dust smothered floor. Clover-green light burned in the dark house, gaudy neon held profane life. She dropped low; yet, peeked around the remnants of a couch. Where the scratching had arose, dark stone made up one wall. Like the walls of the Black Priory, she thought, though gray crept into her vision. The black silhouette shambled back into view, blocked the Cimmerian stone. The eldritch flame burned beneath eyes, which had been sewn shut. Upon their brow, in the center, was the same symbol in the basement library of the monastery. It was carved into the flesh, and burned beneath. Bones of the cadaverous stranger snapped and popped in the sexless face. Lips peeled back, as teeth pushed forward into a pointed sneer. Their hands drew up to their chest, fingernails grew to points. From the bowels dropped a whip-like length of intestine. About the room their blind gaze darted.

Sheila’s eyes widened. She prayed for a rational explanation, but the strange symbol repeated in her mind. Bile rose, she choked, but clamped a hand over her mouth, which still stung. The dark figure began to hunch over, as their spine curved. She shook her head; body drew up, and retreated to a corner.

Wide eyes turned as a ghostly figure passed through the closed door. Sheila mouth opened to scream, but bile turned it into a chocked gurgle. The phantom of shadow moved past, and she recognized the creature in the other room. It moved passed, actions predetermined like a play. It swung an arm in savage strikes; yet, it held nothing. About house it moved to act out old dark deeds. After performances done, it froze, chest heaved. She swallowed and shook her head, but no reason came. It turned, marched back towards her, and she shrunk into a corner. With a savage swing, it moved past; Sheila saw the cleaver, where it had swung. Old stains turned the wooden handle dark.

Sheila shook her head, and crawled to the door. The neon clover-green flame moved closer. She opened the door, cautious to be slow and slipped out into the storm.

The eye of the storm had grown closer. Bolts struck the forest. One hit an old, dead oak, and shattered the thick layer of ice, which smothered the dark woods. Brittle snaps rose in the wake of its destruction. A low stench crawled over the iced earth. Like rotted meat in a freezer, her beleaguered mind moaned, and her stomach churned. Amongst the trees, they lurched. Eyes which had been sewn shut burned from within. Sheila stopped, covered her mouth with both hands to cover a scream. Where the symbol of their heretical god had been carved, a stalk had emerged. It burned in the darkness like a lantern. Their long, crooked teeth chattered. Each slash of lightning revealed the horror of their misshapen bodies. So vile was their stench, it clawed at the throat. More had joined the hunt. Sheila saw them everywhere.

Two shades given form rushed at her, and she dashed away. Another house stood before her, door already open. Sheila threw herself inside, but the tip of her shoe caught the frame. She fell; air whistled out of her lungs. As the pair approach, she saw one’s belly was very round. She curled into a ball, but they passed through her. Is that Troy and Millicent Greene, she wondered. The figures looked back through the broken door at pursuers. Sheila was unable to see, who they feared. The couple held each other.

As the shadowy figures trembled in each other’s arms, they jerked suddenly. One looked towards the back door, and the other towards the front. The taller figure tried to shield the one with the swollen belly. Sheila turned away.

The sound of scratching and gnawing crept from dark stones, exactly like those of the Black Priory. There was twice as much of the blasted rock here than the other house. Sheila watched the stones shifted, and two more of the mangled creatures slipped free. With one arm the taller, shadowy figure knocked something away. With the other, they pulled the shorter one. They fled the house. Sheila saw the neon clover-green burned brighter, and rushed back out of the door.

The dark figures searched the Greene Community. Their net drew ever tighter. Sheila ran, but a line of the creatures had made a perimeter. Teeth chattered, hisses rose, and the stalks that protruded from their misshapen heads brightened. She screamed, slipped, and fell to the earth. They moved closer, and she struggled back on to her feet. Together they moved, but none ran in pursuit. Shadowy figures, remnants of a massacre, alive only in memory, rushed away from unseen assailants in terror. Sheila ran past or through them, as every escape was cut off.

Over them, the Black Priory watched, and the storm’s eye settled over the heretical monastery. Lightning crashed to the earth, as if the Heavens sought to smite the spoiled land below. Rain had soaked Sheila down to the skin, body numb, except for the manic churning in her guts. A chant rose from the closing net of the mangled people. Their voices were united in praise of madness. The shadowy figures closed on the couple, who had every escape cut off. Sheila looked back to them, as they were surrounded. Ancient death and the low stink of insanity settled over the earth. A malignant fog had settled over the darkness, which held razor thin streaks of neon clover-green burst through the mist like dead veins. Unsettled play of light gave birth to eyes, mouths, and little things that scurried; they died quick as they were born.

She recoiled. The memory of death behind clawed at her mind. She turned back to the Black Priory. Before her another shadowy figure ran, and the memory acted out the last horrors of its life. They came for both of them.